Why being middle aged is the best thing ever

Good news, ye possessors of paunches and wranglers of wrinkles: Being middle aged is a great, great thing.

Check this out from David Bainbridge at New Scientist:

Compared with other animals, humans have a very unusual pattern to our lives. We take a very long time to grow up, we are long-lived, and most of us stop reproducing halfway through our lifespan. A few other species have some elements of this life-plan, but only humans have distorted the course of their lives in such a dramatic way. Most of that distortion is caused by the evolution of middle age, which adds two healthy decades after the babies stop appearing – two decades which most other animals simply do not get.

An important clue that middle age isn’t just the start of a downward spiral is that it does not bear the hallmarks of general, passive decline. Most body systems deteriorate very little during this stage of life. Those that do, deteriorate in ways which are very distinctive, are rarely seen in other species, and are often abrupt.

For example, our ability to focus on nearby objects declines in a predictable way – long-sightedness is rare at 35 but universal at 50. Skin elasticity also decreases reliably and often surprisingly abruptly in early middle age. Patterns of fat deposition change in predictable, stereotyped ways. Other systems – notably cognition – barely change.

The article goes on to debunk one of my least favorite misperceptions: that in previous eras everyone died young. in fact, if you factor out deaths before age 5 and deaths in childbirth, people lived to a very decent age.

This article even has a kind word for menopause: “It liberates women and their partners from the unremitting demands of producing children, and gives them time to do what middle-aged people do best – live long and pamper.”

Orcas also have middle age, because their lives and life cycles are similar to ours.

We can stick around and pass on our knowledge, help raise our grandchildren, whatever. It’s an even better deal now that we have Netflix.